“What do you want to know.  About your friend there?  It’s more research than anything else.  Or maybe about you?”

I blinked.  The stuffed animal was close.

Which friend? Grue?

“Art and you, huh.  You want to know what I’m gonna do when we’re done with my investigation?”

Sure, why not.

Why not?  Knowing had to be better than wondering.  One blink.

Pfft. Sometimes, once in a blue moon, I’m in tune with Taylor.

“I’m going to go all out.  Way I figure it, I set your Gemma lobe to attract bugs around you, then remove it, so you’ve got no conscious control over it.  But there’s a point to it!

So she’d be a constant bug magnet?

I make some physical modifications to you, see.  Implant some of Mannequin’s equipment so you’ve got enough sustenance to keep you going, and sustenance to keep the bugs you bring to you alive.  You become a living hive, see?  We could even make it so they crawl inside you and build nests there.”

Not gonna lie, that’s… not a bad idea, from the perspective of someone who thinks like Bonesaw. She’s got a sense of thematics in her art.

“With the shoulder bone connected to the,” she paused, “Hip bone…”

Dem bones, dem bones, dem – dry bones! 😀

…so I just looked at the Wikipedia page for the song (to make sure I was remembering the English lyrics right) and found out that it’s originally about a biblical scene (Ezekiel 37:1-14), and the full original lyrics carry a necromantic vibe even when you don’t separate it from the context that it’d be the Christian god doing the resurrections in question. That’s… darker than expected and super fitting for Bonesaw.

Also, in the second half of the song, the bones are disconnected, which bodes about as much ill for the Undertravelers as connecting them strangely.

Speaking of which I only just realized what Bonesaw was connecting. 😛

Who is she working on?

Bonesaw sang to herself as she drew a scalpel from her sleeve, investigated it, then laid it on the counter.

Ah, alright, just preparing.

“And the hip bone connected to the… back bone.”

That one’s actually in the song, except backwards.

Still, though, just with the shoulder-hip connection, this is already someone who’d probably not be very happy with their life.

Brian was in there.  And he was alive.

Yay!

I couldn’t have been unhappier at that realization.

Yay! 🙂

There was no power to the walk-in-freezer, so it was warm.  The interior was maybe ten by twelve feet across, the walls were metal, with racks on either side.  Brian was hanging by the wall at the far end, propped up enough that his shoulders were pressing against the corner bordering the wall and the ceiling, his arms outstretched to either side like a bird hung up for display, his head hanging forward.

Sounds comfortable! 🙂

(And vaguely religious.)

It was some sort of collaboration between Bonesaw and Mannequin.  He’d been partially flayed, the skin stripped from his arms and legs and stretched over the walls around him.  His ribcage had been opened, splayed apart.

Look, he’s had a fun time!

An improvised metal frame held each of his internal organs in place, some several feet from their intended position, as if they were held out for display, others placed on the shelves of the freezer.

Welcome to the museum of biology!

Cases covered in a ceramic shell seemed to be pumping him full of water, nutrients and other fluids that must have been helping keep him alive.

Like a beer hat! Does he have a foam hand, too? 🙂

The thing that had once been Hatchet Face scooped up the wounded and anyone he could catch and deposited them with his group.

Is he not using his teleports? I feel like Taylor would’ve commented on that.

Bonesaw had a scalpel out and was cutting the second the people were in her reach.  A throat slashed here, a stomach cavity opened there.

I suppose it makes sense she’d weaponize her operation skills.

Intestines and muscle strung from one individual to another, connecting them together as their faces contorted in pain.  Some struggled to stand, to strike Bonesaw or push themselves away, but deft slices with the scalpel severed tendons and ligaments.  It was a kind of grim reversal, the adults utterly helpless and weak when faced with the child. 

Yeeah, when you see this adorable girl coming towards you with her tools, you’re fucked.

I considered replacing “tools” with “toys”, but no. In that scenario, you’re the toy.